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It was Fit for Life Super Learning Day at Chorlton CofE Primary last Friday. Isabel and I spent the day working with KS2 students from Year 3 to Year 6 making their mark and pledging to be fit and healthy by creating a decorative handprint. Here are some pics from our day;

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We collected over 100 handprints towards; All Hands Together To:

It’s a project to celebrate 500 years of St Clements in Chorlton and we aim to create banners with at least 500 handprints from all members of our community on them.

It’s been busy over the last couple of weeks finishing Our Fabulous Manchester Women banners for this years International Women’s Day, but they look great! What makes the banners so eye catching are the student’s images and text celebrating their Fabulous Manchester Women. Also, Libby Tempest’s archive pictures from Manchester libraries really gives a historical context about how Manchester is known for its strong independant women-since the industrial revolution women have worked in the textile factories earning their own money and with financial security comes freedom!

These pictures were taken at events celebrating IWD12; at Manchester Town Hall On Sunday 4th and at Whalley Range High School on Thursday 8th.

The banners are now on display at Whalley Range High school, but there are plans to display them at Manchester Libraries, the Co-op building in Manchester and The Co-op Academy in Lower Blakely, which is great, as the more people who see them the better!

Here is the text that accompanies the banners:

Our Fabulous Manchester Women

Working with Year 9 students from the Co-operative Academy in Lower Blakeley and Whalley Range High School freelance artist Lisa Watson and MCC librarian Libby Tempest have created these three textile banners celebrating Our Fabulous Manchester Women.

Inspiration for the banners came from the student’s rich family histories. One pupil’s big sister came with their family to Manchester in 2006 from Nigeria for a better life; another’s Nanna was the face of Imperial Leather Soap, 1968-1969. Using text and images the students created collages celebrating their strong female family members. The collages were then transferred onto these banners.

The three banners, each 50cm by 150cm, are made from the suffragette colours; green, white and purple and are a vertical timeline. We have used lots of fabrics to simulate the idea of the sediments of earth that you see on geological maps. Our Fabulous Manchester Women’s stories have been stitched through the layers of time onto the banners. The banners have also been made out of cotton to link in with Manchester’s textile heritage.

These banners were commissioned by The Co-operative to celebrate International Women’s Day 2012. International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future. The links between the co-operative movement and women’s movement are longstanding from 1844 to when The Rochdale Pioneers was formed to the 20/20 Women’s Challenge, launched in 2011 which aims to increase participation of women in our democratic structure. The students who contributed to these banners are our 21st century pioneers and our fabulous Manchester women, and men, of the future.

Last workshop on Thursday at Whalley Range High School. The students really excelled in creating colouful and imaginative collages to be tranferred onto Our Fabulous Manchester Women banners. Here are some pics from WRHS and of the (nearly finished) banners;

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I have since spent the last couple of days finishing Our Fabulous Manchester Women banners. Nearly there!

Tomorrow morning (early!) the banners and I are off into town on the metro to the Town Hall for Manchester’s celebration of International Women’s Day 2012. See http://www.manchester.gov.uk/iwd for more info.